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Viewpoint
The Battalion
Texas A&M University
Tuesday
September 6, 1977
The line is busy
“Duuuuuuuuuutt . . . duuuuuuuuuutt . . . duuuuuuuuuutt. ”
That’s the sound that has greeted most students trying to reach Texas
A&M’s student locator service this week. Those lines have been almost
continually busy, put “on hold” intentionally because limited manpower can
not handle the rush of calls.
The two telephone lines into the locator office are monitored by student
workers horn 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. weekdays with shorter hours on weekends.
But three of the four locator student workers either have or are going to
quit, the one remaining student said last night. Those workers quit mostly
because of scheduling problems, he said.
Normally two students would be working evenings, but most nights since
school started only one has been working.
The worker handles incoming calls when possible, but people who walk
into the Housing office, where the locator service is located, receive first
attention.
When a telephone line is open, calls come in almost non-stop. During one
several-minute period last night, six straight calls came in within three sec
onds after the line was open.
And when a student does get through to the service, more often than not
the phone numl>er he wants isn’t listed. Because of a computer failure, the
locator won’t have up-to-date listings until late this week.
Solutions? For now, students can try the local telephone information
number, 441, although that service has only the same information the stu
dent locator uses. But University housing officials need to immediately lo
cate and hire additional student workers to handle the early-semester glut of
calls.
The locator service is a service only if it works. L.R.L.
lfP| A
,/ 'V ;
Old elephant back in Washington
GOP showing signs of rebirth
By DAVID S. BRODER
W ASHINGTON — That strange crea
ture seen prowling in the vicinity of the
Capitol the other night was not what any
one thought. As big as a Metrobus, and
just as sweet-smelling; as myopic of vision
as a Bert Lance bank-auditor; with a trunk
as long as Tongsum Park s gift list; and a
memory as convenient as Suzy Park
Thompson s, it was, in fact, our old friend,
the Republican elephant, testing its legs
for the first time since the unfortunate ac
cident that befell it last year.
At the time of its eviction from the
White House, for truly unpardonable of
fenses, it was thought the poor creature
would crawl off to the Palm Springs
boneyard and never be seen in these parts
again. But last week, while Congress va
cationed, the Grand Old Pachyderm came
back to town, its tusks newly polished, and
with what passes for a middle-aged spring
in its step.
One election does not a trend make,
much less a House majority, but neither is
it every day that a party wins a seat that its
opposition has held for 102 years in a row.
That is what the Republicans did down
in Louisiana’s 1st Congressional District,
where the Democratic incumbent was in
dicted and resigned. It marked their third
victory in four House special elections
since Jimmy Carter entered the White
House last January.
As Steve Stockmeyer, the suddenly jo
vial director of the Republican Congres
sional Campaign Committee, said, “If we
could just pass a constitutional amend
ment to elect one House member a week,
we d have our majority in no time.
Even as they are 72 seats short of that
goal, the Republicans have grounds for
satisfaction. “I’m not sure if it’s a trend of
not,” said party chairman Bill Brock, “but
it does indicate that some of the things
we re doing will bear fruit.
One somewhat controversial project of
Brock’s that unmistakably bore fruit in
Louisiana was the cultivation of the black
vote. Ever since he studied the returns on
his own loss in the 1976 Tennessee Senate
race and Ford’s defeat for the presidency.
Brock has preached the folly of ever “writ
ing off black support.
It’s a message that produces reflexive
skepticism among many Republicans. And
when Brock put his theory to the test by
hiring Robert Wright and John McNeil as
black-voter consultants to the Republican
National Committee, his critics were any
thing but silent with their scorn.
But in the Louisiana race, Republican
Robert Livingston, who had lost narrowly
last November, won this time, in part be-
jcause he increased his share of the black
vote from 3 per cent to over 22 per cent.
More was involved, obviously, than the
efforts of the Wright-McNeil team. The
Democrats had gone through a bitter
jinternal fight and ended with a candidate
whose legislative record drew strong criti
cism from the AFL-CIO and major black
leaders in the district. As if that wereii t
enough, the Democrat was endorsed two
weeks before election by the notoriously
segregationist Leander Perez machine,
whose support was almost literally the kiss
of death to many blacks.
But as Wright, a Columbus, Ca., politi
cal consultant; said, “In the past. Republi
cans had conceded the black vote to Dem
ocrats even when we had a good candidate
and they had a bad one.
Livingston conceded nothing, cam
paigning heavily in black communities and
showing himself, as Wright said, “a sensi
tive person who wanted to meet the needs
of the whole constituency.
While the circumstances of this special
election are unlikely to be repeated in
1978, Livingston now has 14 months to
solidify himself in a district which had
been solidly Democratic for a century.
And a Louisiana Democrat observed that
“if he can hold 20 per cent of the black
vote-, lie II never be beaten.
Special elections are, by nature, special.
But in knocking off three of the four held
this year (taking the old districts of Secre
tary of Transportation Brock Adams of
Washington and Secretary of Agriculture
Bob Bergland of Minnesota, and losing
only in the Atlanta seat vacated by Ambas
sador Andrew Young), the Republicans
have begun to erase the loser image of
1974 and 1976. Theirs is, in fact, the best
record since the Democrats swept five
special elections in 1973-74, en route to
their Watergate landslide.
Victory feeds the prospect of future suc
cess, just as defeat breeds defeatism. Fi-
naneially and otherwise, things are looking
up for the’Republicans. Stockmeyer says
his committee found that by spending
$2,000 or so on a targeted mailing to GOP
contributors, it was able to generate an
average of $40,000 in gifts to the candi
dates in each of this year’s special elec
tions.
That kind of performance, of course,
makes it easier to recruit good candidates.
And from Bill Cohen in the Maine Senate
race to Al Quie in the Minnesota gover
norship to Tom McCall in a return
engagement for the Oregon governorship.
Republicans are finding their best pros
pects ready to take a chance in 1978.
There is life in the old creature yet.
(c) 1977, The Washington Post Compant/
Aggieland isnt skin deep
Sandlot sluggers beneath bigtime duds
By JAMIE AITKEN
Battalion Editor
Chris Mobler couldn’t snag a baseball
with a butterfly net. His dad, I recall,
bought him the biggest mitt seen this side
of the senior league field to try to remedy
the problem. Chris was a ridiculous sight
standing two feet off the bag at third base
crouching for the play with his hands to his
knees — his arm practically disappearing
from the elbow down into the glove that
hid his whole left leg. At least it covered
the hole in his “hefty-boy-sized” jeans.
But geez, that kid could throw. He was
put at third base soon after he joined the
team. In those younger years I remember
second bounce was a fair toss to first, those
years when running the bases was an obs
tacle course over the big, stuffed junior
league base pads.
Chris could throw a country mile. And
fortunately for the team, Larry Sponden-
berg could stretch a country mile and a
little more. “Slim” Spondenberg was the
Slouch
by Jim Earle
, IT BLANK ALLOWS THE READER TO BE AS
tall and skinny kid (“You must be the star
of your basketball team!”) who couldn’t'
shoot a basket to save his life yet loved
baseball with a passion. And as Chris Mo-
bler’s alter-ego, he could catch just about
anything an eight- to ten-year-old could
chunk at him.
Sounds like the beginnings of your all-
American sandlot baseball team, now
doesn’t it? There were seven other midget
league teams that year. Most of the kids
went to the same school. The comraderie
was stickier than a melted Slopoke and the
jeering among teams was of the more in
nocent type — "Pitcher, pitcher, belly
itcher” and “This guv couldn’t hit a bas
ketball...”
You can guess everything about the rest
of the team except their names. There was
little Toby Halford stuck out in right field
where he’d do everyone concerned the
best job; Max Teller at shortstop where he
could bail out Mobler and cover, half the
infield — a little cocky but a safe bet;
Donald Rivers at second; Bobby Alhorn
behind him, and Lloyd Day out in loft (he
was the fastest on the team and could get
to those missed outfield flies the quickest).
The pitching squad consisted of who
ever didn’t have the wildman tendencies
that night. Inevitably, though, the team
would go through a couple or more
Backstop Bombers before the night was
out. Joey Nichols, the catcher, always had
the busiest, if not the most frustrating,
night.
Well, the scenario for all one season and
half the next in the bleachers behind the
team’s bench was the same, game in and
game out.
Chris Mobley’s old man always sat on
the second tier where he could watch
Chris fumble around at his shoe strings
and throw his squat body halfway to first
base in his effort to make the play. Toby
Halford’s dad sat up at the top, a quiet guy
with an ever-present dead cigar, always
giving Toby the thumbs-up.
A few of the players’ mothers gathered
in the middle where they yelled encour
agement like a pep squad. And Max Tel
ler’s dad always kept the scores for the
umpire, including bad calls per inning. He
sat directly behind the plate.
Neighborhood kids would bat around
empty concession stand cups and the
mini-pennant was regularly re-enacted on
many a warm Texas night.
Then one night, midway through the
second season, the team took the field in
uniforms. The over-sized t-shirts and
holey blue jeans w'ere replaced with
brand-spanking-new gold and white pants
and shirt with white, stretchy baseball
socks. The tennis shoes were a little out of
place, but no one seemed to notice. The
fact was, out of nowhere, this team had
uniforms when no one else did.
Later, it was discovered that some of
the more affluent dads got together to give
their team something for all their gutsy
efforts on the playing field. Everyone
agreed it was a nice gesture.
The kids played as good and bad as they
always had, but the splendor of the togs
seemed to make each victory better than
the last, and the' losses not quite so tough.
People came from out of nowhere to see
this team with such flair and excitement.
The bleachers were full each night the
team played and many new comers learned
how to pidl splinters from their posteriors
that summer. The pep squad was reas
signed a position right behind the team’s
bench to be near “their boys,” and Mr.
Teller became the life of the spectators’
stands.
The kids pulled in a respectable third
place that summer; “only a spit aw ay from
second place,” is the only saying I re
member from Mr. Teller.
At the end-of-the-season party, when
the players got together aw ay from the old
folks’ chatter, the talk turned back over
the season — fantastic uniforms, everyone
out to see them play... that big final
game...how Toby got a hit, Chris lost the
ball in his mitt, Larry caught everything in
reach, the outfield bloopers and occasional
catches, Joey alw ays kicking his glove after
those wild pitches...
Those two summers came to mind this
week as I strolled around campus pre
pared for the worst after hearing the en
rollment figures. I found that our new'
multi-million dollar duds recently con
structed at various parts of the campus are
quite a sight, the image of a bustling,
quick-paced university. But the campus
life, the h uman aspect, is as down-home as
it was when I first began watching it many
seasons ago.
Top of the New®
Campus
Aggie lawyers to gather
The MBA-Law Day program is planned for Sept. 10 from !M|B. ec j
a.m.-2:30 p.m. in room 145 of the MSC. A luncheon with forJ
Texas A&M University students representing several law schools
be at 11:30. Those desiring to attend the luncheon should sign-up J
Sept. 8 in room 221 of the MSC between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m,J
in room 216 MSC between 5:00 and 10.00 p.m.
ohe
State
Last boat crash victim sought fc
Harris County marine deputies yesterday (fragged the SanJadiilJ
River, hunting for a sixth victim in the crash of two jet boats witlii
large unlit cabin cruiser. Four bodies were recovered from the dm
1 . Vs, C . I ^ ^ l ■ 1 ^ . w a a • ■ ■ r , , • a I. a . . a .-a -» 4- L , . t ' aa a . .. T).
late Sunday about a quarter of a mile upriver from the Cove Rut:
Marina where one of the boats sank in 45-foot-deep water w ’
persons aboard. A fifth body was found Monday morning.
Nation
ditio
con
Texas farmworkers end march
th<
it e
ttice
r.
lysis
A farmworkers “March for Human rights" which started in Ausl
ended Monday in Washington D.C. with a Labor Day rally on tlf
steps of the Lincoln Memorial. About 5(H) members of the Tea
Farmworkers Union (TFWU) and their supporters gathered fob
speakers call for legislation giving migrant farm workers the rightb
organize, to hold union elections, and to bargain collectively fa
union contracts. The farm workers walked 20 miles a day for80davs
stopping along the way for support rallies and staying in churches ami
private homes.
Treaty loses one opponent
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A temporary injunction was served on Attorney General RicH
C. Turner in Des Moines, Iowa, yesterday aimed at bfockinghimlrm
further participation in a lawsuit to stop the signing of the Panara
Canal treaty. State Sen. James Redmond, D-Cedar Rapids, oil
tained the injunction Friday night, contending Turner cannot use
state funds in his attempts to stop the signing. President Carterwas
scheduled to sign the treaty in ceremonies Wednesday.
Washington Post reporter dies
Marion L. Clark, a member of the Washington Post team that
broke the story on the Wayne Hays sex scandal, was killed Sunday
night when she walked into an airplane propeller as she was rushing
to greet her parents. The accident occured at the Iosco County Air
port in East Tawas, Mich., as Miss Clark stepped off a private plane
and ran towards her parents, who she was visiting for the holiday,
She was pronounced dead at the scene from head injuries.
Legion disease reappears
Three confirmed and two suspected cases of Legionnaires’ Disease
in Franklin County, Ohio, are being investigated by state and federal
medical authorities. One person died from the disease, throe others
were in serious condition and the other person has recovered. The,
five cases — all women — are the first confirmed cluster of Le
gionnaire s disease since the bacterial disease with severe
pneumonia-like symptoms broke out at a Pennsylvania state conven
tion of the American Legion in Philadelphia late last summer.
World
No survivors in Andes crash
All 33 persons aboard were killed in the plunge of a domestic
airliner into a small Andes lake near Quito, Ecuador, only three
minutes from its destination, the pilot of a rescue helicopter said. The
four-engine airplane owned by the Ecuadorian Airlines SAN wasona
flight Sunday from Guayaquil to Cuenca, high in the Andes
mountain range, when it caught fire and crashed into Cajas Like,
authorities said.
Soviets asked to ‘stop meddling
Arab foreign ministers indirectly called on the Soviet Union yes
terday to stop meddling in the horn of Africa and urged a peaceful
settlement for the desert war between Ethiopia and Somalia. Meeting
on the third and final day of their conference in Cairo, Egypt, the
ministers also called a special session in Tunis Nov. 12 to prepare an
Arab summit meeting on future moves in the conflict with Israel.
Weather
Partly cloudy and hot Tuesday and Wednesday with a high both
days in low 90s. Northeasterly winds 10-15 mph. 10% chance of
rain this afternoon. Low tonight upper 60s.
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